Volume 12, Issue 17
Dear Reader,
I sincerely thank you for opening this letter and reading it!
Why?
Because YOU are the reason that I spend the time writing this special communication. While we may never have met face-to-face, we share this personal exchange.
Table of Contents
While American Thanksgiving marks the start of many marketers’ major promotional period, I view this period as a time to appreciate the people we care about in our lives.
Our work and daily lives get so crammed with activities we forget how precious our time is. Not only is time our most scarce personal resource, but also we don’t know how much of it we have. So, use this time to consider whether your life is progressing along a path aligned with your values and goals. If not, figure out how to change it.
I get how difficult this can be.
Our lives get busy with overstuffed calendars and never-ending to-do lists. Without realizing it, days and weeks pass without connecting with people who are part of these activities. We tell ourselves that we have time to catch up with family and people we care about.
But do we really find the opportunity to follow through on our intentions?
In our hearts, we like to think they know we care about them without actually saying the small but important words like “You matter because you’re special to me.” It’s easy to believe they’ll be available when we have time to talk or get together at some future point. Yet, this interaction may never happen.
Near the end of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury makes a point that is relevant to each of us, especially during this Thanksgiving period. As the unnamed city in the book burns, Granger tells Montag, the main character who was a firefighter:
“ ‘Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. … Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away.” [Fahrenheit 451 pages 149 – 150. Editor’s Emphasis]
These words spoke to me. They reveal that each of us is important to someone whose life we’ve touched and changed. This sentiment echoes the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince. While the book has many quotes that express this sentiment, I like this one:
“…To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world….”
By tame, the fox means that the Little Prince gets to know him over time. As a result, they develop a relationship over many encounters.
When I started living on my own, my dad called me every Saturday morning to check in and catch up. At the time, I didn’t consider it very important. Looking back now, I realize how special that time was. Just the two of us talking because we made time to talk to each other.
Before I hung up, I always said, “I love you, Dad.” To this, he always replied, “You don’t need to say that because I know it.” This upset me. While my dad’s love for our family was his unfaltering north star, he missed that it was important for me to express my love for him as it was for him to hear it.
This past weekend, I had a first-hand lesson on how important it is to let people know we care about them. One of my close friends lost one of her cousins due to a car accident. While I never met him, I know that his family feels the pain of no longer having him in their lives. They also have the loss of not letting him know how much they cared about him before he passed.
Actionable Life Tip For Thanksgiving
- Reach out to your family and friends to let them know you care about them. Don’t assume they know how you feel. Especially since the pandemic, many people may feel too much time has passed to contact people who are not in their everyday lives. Make the first step. It may be hard since you’re out of practice, but it’ll make you feel better. Until you talk, you never know how they feel and what has happened in their lives.
► Holiday Content Marketing
Thanksgiving: What It Means For You
Thursday is Thanksgiving in the US, a period viewed as the beginning of the holiday buying season by marketers and retailers.
Like the United States, Thanksgiving and its traditions continue to evolve. Founded by diverse groups of people from different lands, religions and social statuses as well as by choice and by force to start a new life.
Despite what many believe, a lot of our Thanksgiving traditions originated based a content marketing promotion led by Sarah Josepha Hale’s efforts as the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. Hale shaped the holiday with her writing and recipes. In addition, she engaged in a letter-writing campaign to senior politicians to create a national holiday.
For example, living in Pennsylvania, she made turkey, Benjamin Franklin’s choice for the national bird, the centerpiece of her holiday meal.
Her letter campaign finally succeeded in 1863 when President Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official national holiday to be observed on the last Thursday in November. He used the holiday to heal the country divided by the Civil War.
Today we face different and more diverse challenges here as well as around the world. Just as the early settlers did, we have to find new ways to live and improve our lives using our current resources. We must allow everyone to live a healthy life with sufficient food and other necessities as well as respect others who may not share our race, religion, background, and other ideals we believe are important.
Actionable Holiday Marketing Tips
- Understand the why, how and what of your story. In The Island At The Center Of The World, the history of New York City under the Dutch in the 1600s during a period of enlightenment, reveals a world of change and transformation not dissimilar from our own.
- Create and modify rituals so they have meaning for you and those close to you.
- Use your voice to accomplish what you believe is important. Follow Hale’s letter-writing campaign example to achieve important goals for your community and your business.
- Develop recipes and other instructions to help your customers use your products and broader offerings to celebrate holidays that are important to your business.
Recommended Reading
► The Writing Corner
How To Improve Your Writing
To become a better content marketer, writer or author, read widely. Go beyond the books you have to read for work or school. Where available, go to your local library or nearby bookstore.
Reading books, especially classics, teaches you about the craft of writing since you experience how authors compose their stories, develop their characters, create their plots, and highlight larger themes.
Alternatively, from the convenience of your favorite device, you can access the New York Public Library and the Internet Archives. Both are free resources where you can research and read books and other media online.
Recently, I read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, one of the top banned books. I read the 60th Anniversary Edition published in 2013 with an introduction by Neil Gaiman and commentary by a variety of authors and professors.
I found it fascinating that that Bradbury first wrote Fahrenheit 451 as a short story called The Pedestrian. Later this story influenced another of Bradbury’s stories entitled The Fireman. As Bradbury continued to think about the ideas in these stories, they grew into the book, Fahrenheit 451.
What does this mean for your writing?
Continue to expand and improve a key element of your writing. My friend and colleague, Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media, continually updates his book, Content Chemistry. It’s in its sixth edition.
Actionable Writing Lesson:
- Keep your content up-to-date so it remains relevant to your target audience.
Recommended Reading
In his introduction to the 60th anniversary edition of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Neil Gaiman makes an insightful point about science and speculative fiction. Apply this approach to your writing.
“What speculative fiction is really good at is not the future but the present—taking an aspect of it that troubles or is dangerous, and extending and extrapolating that aspect into something that allows the people of the time to see what they are doing from a different angle and from a different place. It’s cautionary.” [Introduction- Neil Gaiman pages xiii April 2013. Editor’s emphasis.]
As a writer, assess how your work provides stories and ideas for your target audience. To achieve this, get feedback from other people before publishing your work.
Actionable Writing Tips
- Read columns and newsletters that provide insights and references to great writing. I read a wide selection of newsletters related to books and writing. Among the ones I recommend starting with are Scott Monty’s Timeless and Timely and Maria Popva’s The Marginalian. (BTW–These links are to relevant columns.I hope you like them.)
- Get recommendations from friends, colleagues and other publications.
Recommended Reading
Happy Thanksgiving!
Talk turkey with someone you care about.
Wild Turkey via Suzy Brooks (@simplysuzy) cc zero
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Happy Marketing,
Heidi
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